Fig. 6From: Dark blood cardiovascular magnetic resonance of the heart, great vessels, and lungs using electrocardiographic-gated three-dimensional unbalanced steady-state free precessionExamples of free-breathing, navigator-gated 3D uSSFP. Top row Healthy subject. RR interval was approximately 1Â s. Scans were acquired in a sagittal orientation with multiplanar reconstructions performed in standard cardiac orientations (4-chamber, 2-chamber, short axis), as well as along the long axis of the aorta. There is uniform blood pool suppression without evidence of motion artifacts, allowing detailed evaluation of cardiac and aortic morphology. Bottom row Patient with dilated cardiomyopathy. RR interval was approximately 0.9Â s. Diastolic phase cine bSSFP images in the 4-chamber and short axis orientations are compared with the corresponding double oblique multiplanar reconstructions from 3D uSSFP. Cardiac morphology is again well shown on the dark blood images without evidence of significant motion artifactsBack to article page